Macromedia Shockwave/Flash Players

Macromedia's Shockwave and Flash Players offer distinct multimedia viewing options. Macromedia Flash Player displays content such as interactive animation. Macromedia Shockwave Player provides support for many forms of multimedia, including online games, interactive simulations, and training programs. Shockwave's capabilities can be extended with the addition of Xtra extensions, available from Macromedia.

Note: an Internet connection is required during the installation process.
If you experience difficulties installing Shockwave Player or need troubleshooting information, visit Macromedia Shockwave Player Support Center for further assistance.

To view PDF files download:

Adobe®'s Portable Document Format is used for worldwide electronic document distribution. Adobe PDF is a universal file format that preserves all the fonts, formatting, graphics, and color of any source document, regardless of the application and platform used to create it.

With Adobe Acrobat Reader software, you can view and print Adobe PDF files across a range of hardware and operating systems.

Download and Install Adobe Acrobat Reader

Note: an Internet connection is required during the installation process.
If you experience difficulties installing Acrobat Reader, visit Acrobat Reader Support for installation help and troubleshooting information.

If you need further assistance downloading and viewing a PDF file from one of our book sites, click below for complete instructions. Downloading and Viewing PDF Files

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office contains several applications that are used to create documents you may encounter on the Internet. Should you wish to view these files, but do not have the actual applications (Excel, Word, and PowerPoint) on your computer, you can view and print the files by installing the free utilities described below.

Compressed Files

Compressed files, often referred to as "zipped" files, use an encoding utility to compact the files into as small a package as possible. The compressed versions of these files are then quicker and easier to transfer or download. If left in their compressed state, these files use up less storage space on your hard drive until such time as when they are "unzipped" or "expanded" to their original versions. Several different types of files can be compressed together, or one large file can be compressed alone. The two most used compression utilities, described below, are available for download from their respective web sites.

StuffIt Expander™

StuffIt is a compression utility available in both Windows and Macintosh versions. Files compressed with this utility on a Mac will usually have a ".sit" extension in their name, while those compressed on a Windows system will have a ".zip" extension. In either case, most web browsers will use Expander™ to automatically expand compressed files to their original state. StuffIt Expander™ is available free for downloading below.

If you should need to be guided through the process of downloading and viewing compressed files after you have installed the above utility, go to Compressed Files: Step by Step for more details.

WinZip

WinZip is a Windows-only compression utility. Files compressed with this utility will have a ".zip" extension in the name of the file. Web browsers will open a dialog window when you click on a "zip" file, prompting you to download the file. Once downloaded, the file can be saved, which will activate the WinZip utility to "unzip" the file's contents. The WinZip evaluation version is available for downloading below.

Please note that this utility is available as shareware and is meant for evaluation purposes only. A fee to register the product is required after the evaluation period.

Also available: The Internet Browser Support Add-On (This free add-on helps to automate the "unzipping" process.)